


Gravel & Glass

by MellytheHun



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Body Worship, Bottom Richie Tozier, Consensual Underage Sex, Drama, Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier Bantering, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak is Bad at Feelings, Eddie Kaspbrak is a Mess, Emotionally Repressed, First Kiss, First Time, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, Heavy Angst, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Making Out, Mind The Lack Of Warnings, Multiple Orgasms, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Requited Love, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris Are Best Friends, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie is a Romantic, Rimming, Romance, Sexual Identity, Soft Richie Tozier, Some Humor, Soulmates, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex, Underage Smoking, please read the notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:28:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29233035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: “Richie…” Eddie addresses timidly, voice growing more shaky the more he speaks, “... what if when people leave Derry, something just clicks, and makes sense to them, like, all of it, and they don’t think, or talk about it ever again? What if the people who leave - what if they forget each other, you know? Like, what if when you move out of this town, you, like - wake up? The way people do from bad dreams? What if you - what if you leave, and you forget about me -”
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 13
Kudos: 50





	1. The Vertigo Cured

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EriSkyHigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EriSkyHigh/gifts).



> So many notes, so many tags.  
> First of all, I know I have 5 million WIPs, but this is a gift fic, and also I've been ~ * ~ Massively Depressed ~ * ~
> 
> Nicole is my wife. She is not married to me, she lives in another state, and she has a spouse that is not me, but don't let this fool you. She is my beautiful wife, and she requested a pretty specific type of fic, and she should have everything she wants in life and more, so here I am.
> 
> She requested high school drama, ANGST, lots and lots of ANGST, misunderstandings/mistakes made while drunk/high, and something sexy, but also internalized homophobia bc she likes pain and suffering. 
> 
> So, there's 17 year olds having sex in this fic. If that makes steam billow from your ears, I suggest you exit this tab!  
> As for potential triggers and squicks; there is recreational drug use in the beginning of the fic, and a LOT of explicit sexual content in the middle. If you'd like to skip the sexual content, stop reading at the line "... I do?" all the way down to the bottom.
> 
> A description of anything important/meaningful in the scene will be described in the bottom notes for you! <3
> 
> Also, I know lots of people write awkward first times, but my first time having consensual sex (I was also a teenager at the time, bc teenagers cannot be trusted, they're just horny goblins w driving permits) was really beautiful, and successful, so that's how I like to write it. I get it if that feels unrealistic, but it happened for me, and so I figure it can't be too out of the realm of possibility.
> 
> Bill Hader said 'fuck Stephen King, I think Richie is a romantic,' (he actually only said the second part) and I said 'bet?' 
> 
> Inspiration for this fic comes from the song 'Return,' by OKGO, that scene in The Royal Tenenbaums where Gwenyth Paltrow says to Luke Wilson 'I think we're just gonna have to be secretly in love with each other, and leave it at that, Richie,' and also, THIS specific review about rim jobs featured in Men's Health in an article titled 'What Ass Licking Feels Like, According to 10 People Who've Tried It:'
> 
> Daya, 27: “Rimming feels like when Beyoncé is levitating in her bedroom filled with holy water in the transition to the ‘Hold Up’ music video, except Beyoncé is actually there reciting Warsan Shire poetry into your asshole as she baptizes you.”
> 
> Read carefully, and enjoy!

Swaying into the doorway of an eerily cleared out bedroom, Eddie finds Richie lying on the floor, casually lounging with his back on the hardwood, and his right calf propped against his left knee.

Piled, packed moving boxes are stacked in the darkest corners of the room. 

“So, your dad’s rum is gone, like, officially. In a way he will definitely notice.”

“Mm.”

“I managed to rescue your mom’s throw blanket from any stains, but it’ll probably need another wash cycle before she gets home.”

“Mhm.”

“Mike is in no way sober, but he’s our best shot at getting Stan home safely, and he’s got a good poker-face, so delivery of Stan to his home is en-route, and Mike said he’ll call when he gets home safe.”

“Good, good.”

Quite certain he may as well be talking to a mirror, Eddie crosses his arms over his chest, watching smoke steadily rise from Richie’s lips, and he adds, “news also said our nation’s most deeply beloved, literate goose, Bodo, is behind the mounting Y-two-K theories.”

“Mm.”

“And, anyway, your mom isn’t gonna be home by tomorrow, because she got pulled over in Dubai, driving an Amish buggy, drunk on blueberry wine. There was a crash during her chase with police, with the world’s largest rubber duck, and there were no survivors.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Police said she’d successfully levitated, and shoplifted ten rattlesnakes, and a pretty concerning amount of uranium.”

“Mhm.”

Sighing, Eddie approaches Richie, who’s laid out, smoking his deeply pungent blunt. 

“All this just to avoid talking about it?”

Lazily, Richie lolls his head back, blinks up at him, blows smoke from the corner of his mouth, and replies, “oh, hey, Eddie.”

“Hi, dickweed, are we seriously not going to talk about this?”

After another inhalation, and exhalation, Richie tells him, “nothing to talk about.”

“You’re such a piece of shit,” Eddie informs him, deciding he’s a touch too drunk to keep standing above Richie, “If I sit down, and aggressively ignore the ‘sold,’ sign on the front lawn with you, can I get a hit?”

“Eds, honey-bun, as long as we don’t talk about shit we can’t change, I’d love to have the company.”

“Do _not_ call me honey-bun.”

“Eddie, baby,” Richie teases in an approximation of a Sean Connery Voice, showing a lot of teeth with it, “come here and blaze this bone with me.”

“James Bond would never say ‘blaze this bone,’” Eddie argues.

“You don’t know that.”

“Sure I do, it’d be insanely out of character.”

“The double-oh-seven is unknowable, Eds, stop pretending like you get him.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? He -” realizing that Richie is just trying to rile him up, Eddie glares down at him, and finishes flatly, “I really can’t overstate how much I hate you.”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Richie chastises in a sing-song voice, “no being mean to your adoring hostess with the most-est.”

Grumbling, Eddie takes a seat next to Richie, on the floor; the moonlight is spilling in, staining them in the dull shine of night, a nearby streetlamp mixing gold in with the silver of the stars.

The light comes in this room really beautifully, splashing across Richie’s darkwood floors, and, as promised, Richie passes him the expertly rolled joint as soon as Eddie is seated in the same patch of moonlight.

“I picture your room when I picture the night Voldemort tried to kill Harry.”

“Which time?”

Eddie snorts a laugh, and smiles when he says, “shut up.”

“I’m just saying, he’s supposed to be this big, scary overlord of dark magic, and it’s taking him several attempts to kill a visually impaired minor.”

“Alright, alright, I know you don’t like _Harry Potter_ , we don’t have to get into it.”

“I just don’t like the main character. Who’s he meant to appeal to?” Richie posits, “Pale, weedy, big glasses, mop of black hair, all that sexual tension with the loud, mouthy kid -”

“Fuck you,” Eddie jokes, laughing and coughing.

“ - wants to know and love his father -”

“Your dad literally lives in the same house as you, Richie.”

“And you assume that means I know the dude at all? Anyway, he’s got the dad he doesn’t know -”

“Because his dad is _dead_ -”

“The point stands -”

“No, it doesn’t!” Eddie argues, grinning, “Your situations are not at all the same!”

“Agree to disagree,” Richie suggests passively before quickly adding, “he’s got the mother that’s beloved by all -”

“That one’s fair, I love your mom.”

“Are you kidding?” Richie asks rhetorically, “I’d kill and die for Mags Tozier. She’s a dynamite lady.”

“You know who your mom looks like? She reminds me of, uhm…” still drunk, feeling silly, Eddie leans to the side, trailing off in search of a name that might be floating above his head, “...who’s the woman from _MASH_?”

“Loretta Swit.”

“Her!” Eddie declares with a snap of his fingers, “Yeah, your mom reminds me of Loretta Swit.”

“You should tell’er that, she might just kiss you on the mouth.”

“Lucky me,” Eddie compliments, waggling his eyebrows suggestively at Richie to make him laugh, while passing back the joint.

He’s perfectly buzzed on an undoubtedly expensive bottle of Pyrat Planters Gold that he shared generously with Stan, but he’s not ill from it. 

Stan, unfortunately, chose to mix drinks in an effort to stave away his sadness in a rush.

As Eddie passes the joint back to Richie, he thinks to himself solemnly that Stan’s likely regretting it by now.

Showing off, Richie blows rings of smoke that dissipate near the open window, and Eddie coughs stiltedly, not having mastered the grace of smoking still. 

Richie doesn’t make fun of him for it, but he does like to gloat about his ability to blow rings, usually by quoting Gandalf as he does.

Instead, he mumbles, “I don’t get the dementors.”

“How are we still on _Harry Potter_?”

“Like, why are they considered part of dark magic?”

Staring at the dissipating smoke rings as they go by, Eddie tells him plainly, “they steal happiness.”

“Do they steal it, or do they eat it?”

Pausing, it takes a moment for Eddie to register the question, and then he hazards a guess, “both?”

“Hmm,” Richie hums contemplatively, “I just feel like if dark magic is something that’s, like, frowned upon, it should be stuff that’s done with malicious intent. I thought the dementors were just magical creatures that feed on happy feelings. Not their fault they… evolved? That way? Do magical creatures evolve in _Harry Potter_?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Eddie counters casually, “I think they’re classified as dark creatures because they don’t do good stuff.”

“If we don’t know the evolutionary chain in _Harry Potter_ , then no one can make that argument,” Richie debates, his brow knit very seriously, “It’s like all those venomous toads that got released into Australia, for like… uh… crocodile population control, and now they’re running amok. It’s not the toads’ fault, they’re not bad toads, and they’ve served an evolutionary purpose, it’s not their fault they don’t have any natural predators in Australia.”

“Well, what if the toads - fuck - the dementors are just supposed to be evil for the sake of being evil?”

“Evil isn’t a scientific term, it’s emotional,” Richie dismisses with a flippant hand wave, “Evil can’t be measured, it’s subjective and stuff, but if we decide we’re gonna measure evil by, like, a conscious being’s ability to assess what is lawfully acceptable or unacceptable, then we can’t judge the dementors then either, cause they’re not making judgement calls, they’re just eating.”

“That’s assuming that their evolution is based on survival of the fittest, though.”

“Yeah? What else would it be?”

“I dunno, something more magical? Could be totally different. Maybe humans aren’t even apex predators in _Harry Potter_ , you know? Like, there’s probably magical creatures that top the food chain above humans.”

“Hmm. A fascinating counterpoint, Captain,” comes Richie’s best Leonard Nimoy Voice.

“Thank you, Mister Spock,” Eddie replies as the joint is passed back to him.

Staring at the windowsill, Eddie remembers how Mike once scaled this side of the house, down that window, narrowly avoiding being discovered by Richie’s parents after dropping off a dimebag.

Eddie remembers, because he was there, stage-whispering to Mike about what a bad idea it was. 

Richie was already grounded at the time, and they were all even more careless back then than they are now, which is saying a lot.

It used to be a fond memory, but now that Eddie knows some other kid is going to occupy this room, some other family will have this house, and no one in it will know about Mike scaling the side, the memory is suddenly bitter.

There are a lot of fond memories attached to the Tozier household, and Eddie knows now that all of them will be tainted with that ugly feeling; all the _Star Trek_ marathons, the hours spend on Halloween costume synchronicity, the make-believe sword fights, all the times Eddie flushed the downstairs toilet when Richie was in the upstairs shower, all the rushed school projects done on the kitchen floor at the last minute.

Mrs. Tozier always had extra posterboard in the basement, and Mr. Tozier had a preternatural ability to conjure bottles of Elmer’s glue seemingly anywhere, at any time.

He wonders if Richie is thinking about the same stuff; about how they’ve all grown in Derry, despite the weather being incompatibly harsh, and the soil made of something foul. 

Maybe Richie too is remembering all the birthday parties, and holiday festivities that have filled that house with cheer, and music. 

Maybe Richie is remembering how, when Eddie said he was gross for liking mayonnaise, he emptied a huge jar of it the following day, and replaced it with vanilla pudding, which he then ate in front of Eddie just to make him gag. Bill had laughed so hard that day, he started snorting, and Eddie still can’t eat mayonnaise to this day.

Maybe Richie is remembering how, when he stole every second button off of every one of Eddie’s shirts in the seventh grade, Eddie retaliated by infiltrating his bedroom, and putting shaving cream in all of his shoes.

Maybe Richie is remembering how, once he’d gotten proficient with the family piano, he’d ‘play,’ Eddie in and out of every room, until Eddie lost his mind over it, recruited Mike’s help, and stuffed small frogs under the fallboard of the piano. The next time Richie opened it would be the last time Richie was ever able to get his voice that high, and a frog making a leap for freedom nearly pushed over a grandmother’s urn.

Luckily, Mike had caught it in time, before it hit the floor, and Eddie remembers that Richie’s parents thought it was all actually very funny - they were always good sports about the Losers kicking up trouble.

The silence between Richie and he is deafening.

“This is so stupid.”

“What? Getting high, and drunk on a Sunday, or, like, everything?”

_Yes_ , Eddie thinks irritably to himself.

“Richie, we gotta talk about it -”

“No, we fuckin’ don’t!” Richie argues, gesticulating into the air, “There was one rule for hanging out in my room with me, I have been very gracious, and there’s nothing to fuckin’ say!”

“But when Bill left -”

“Bill is a self-centered dickhead who keeps his promises as well as he keeps his stupid girlfriends,” Richie seethes, but when Eddie gives him a troubled look, he adds, “I say that with the utmost love in my heart, I’m literally just saying that because I hate that he left us, but I gotta, y’know, compartmentalize this shit somehow. Anyway, fuck Bill, okay?”

Knowing it’s unwise to speak the name, but drunk enough not to care, Eddie starts again with, “Beverly -”

“ _Don’t_ fuckin’ talk to me about Beverly, okay?” Richie interjects immediately, his eyes shining, “That shit broke my heart, I don’t wanna fuckin’ talk about Beverly -”

“She never wrote, though, Richie, she never called - Bill didn’t either, and I know Ben only left a few weeks ago, but I get the feeling we’re not gonna hear from him either, and I’m scared.”

Richie shuts his eyes tightly for a moment, and Eddie sees him trying to fight that knee-jerk response of his, to crack a joke. 

“Richie…” Eddie addresses timidly, voice growing more shaky the more he speaks, “... what if when people leave Derry, something just clicks, and makes sense to them, like, all of it, and they don’t think, or talk about it ever again? What if the people who leave - what if they forget each other, you know? Like, what if when you move out of this town, you, like - wake up? The way people do from bad dreams? What if you - what if you leave, and you forget about me -”

“Won’t forget about you,” Richie tells him certainly, his eyes opening again, though he’s staring at his ceiling, and deliberately not at Eddie, “Not you, Eds.”

Eddie wants to feel as certain as Richie sounds, but, “you can’t promise shit, you know that -”

“Okay, then fuck you, I’m gonna start forgetting you right now.”

“Oh my _God_ , you’re such an asshole!” Eddie shouts, sitting up, “I don’t even know why I try to talk to you like a normal person!”

“Wanna hit me? You sorta look like you wanna hit me,” Richie teases, blowing out more smoke from the corner of his smirking mouth.

“I always want to hit you!”

“Always?” Richie asks, coughing around a chuckle, passing the joint back to Eddie.

“Don’t fuckin’ smirk at me like that - I hate that face, you know I hate that face,” Eddie admonishes, hands flailing, still taking the joint, “Stop making the face, I hate it.”

“I came through for you a good few times, though, right? I’m not entirely a jackass.”

Knowing in his heart that Richie is looking for some kind of reassurance, Eddie sighs in defeat, begrudgingly agreeing, “no, not entirely. Still, even the times you came through for me in some grand gesture, or something, it was more like me suppressing the urge to punch you, rather than the desire not being there at all.”

“Hmm,” Richie ponders thoughtfully, “What about that time I saw Huffman coming for you, and hit him with my bike on my way to rescue you? That was pretty heroic of me.”

“Oh, yeah,” Eddie recalls, “You did congratulate yourself a lot for that one, but I had to give it to you. Even then, considering how you went on, and on about how amazing you were for saving me, I was pretty torn between grabbing your dumb face and kissing you, or throwing my arm back as far as it can go, and just wrecking your hyoid bone.”

“You still grapple with that?”

Eddie cocks a brow at him.

“You can hit me,” Richie offers nonchalantly, “You can hit me, if you want.”

Everything begins to blur at the edges in a familiar way, going soft, and much more bearable. Reality is often too straining on Eddie’s eyes, and ears, and heart, and soul.

Smoking with Richie helps.

Doing anything with Richie helps. 

“I don’t wanna hit you, Richie,” Eddie tells him with an air of resignation, though he’s not entirely sure that’s true, based on the confused, and intense wriggling sensation in his chest.

“You wanna kiss me, then?” Richie asks the ceiling, his face partially curtained by shadow.

“ _Pfft_ , you wish you were so lucky.”

“Hm,” Richie hums indistinctly, “And we all know I ain’t no senator’s son.”

Reminded of how Richie has taken to saying that phrase whenever he finds himself unlucky, or just low on cash, Eddie smiles a little, and blows out a stream of smoke from the corner of his mouth before muttering back, “no, you ain’t no senator’s son.”

Inhaling deeply on a hit that should’ve gone to Richie, Eddie holds it, balances over Richie with his far hand flat on the floor, and his right hand on Richie’s shoulder - and he bumps their noses together.

Richie’s eyes are dark, and rounded with surprised at the sudden proximity; Eddie makes a motion with his jaw, as if to tell Richie to make room for him, like he’s going to get kissed.

Eddie isn’t sure why he knows Richie will obey, but Eddie thinks he will, and he does.

It doesn’t matter, teasing Richie like that, because he’s high, and still buzzed, and everything is soft now, dream-like, and nothing really matters. They’re not smiling or laughing much, but it’s fun, in a fucked up, sad way. 

Shutting his eyes, Eddie leans in closer still, opens his mouth, feels how Richie’s lips mirror his, and then he shares the smoke that billows out.

He can feel the way that Richie startles, and he wants to laugh, he thinks maybe he does a little, but he’s very focused on the magnetic feeling between them.

It’s as if something is pushing Eddie down, like the fabric of reality itself is pulling him in closer to Richie.

But then, maybe he’s just dizzy.

Either way, it takes a lot of restraint to pull back at all, and his lips still feel like static afterward; like unspent kinetic energy, anticipatory, excited.

He doesn’t move far once he does move, and when he opens his eyes, he finds Richie’s half-lidded gaze already on him.

Everything around him feels like a watercolor painting, seen in a dream. He doesn’t know that he feels real, but he knows the issue of being real or unreal doesn’t bother him any right now. 

Time feels malleable, and even the hardwood floor seems forgiving, but Richie’s dark blue eyes are center, and focused in Eddie’s vision.

“I’m fuzzy.”

“You’re high,” Richie murmurs, smoke clouds floating between them.

“Probably. I’ve got television static in my lips.”

“Hmm. That’s new,” Richie comments, his eyes flickering down to Eddie’s lips, as if he could see the mixed up pixels there, “You know, the static sound that comes from a television - it’s the sound of the universe. Like, it’s the sound the universe makes, out in space. Or, well - it’s more like it’s the sound of the Big Bang, but the theory about that still confuses me, so I can’t explain it right.”

“Cool,” Eddie says, his heart in his throat, “So, I’ve got the whole universe in my lips?”

“I’d believe it,” Richie answers, eyes moving back up to Eddie’s in a way that is absolutely not playful anymore.

Eddie can feel his heartbeat pulsating through his entire body, and his palms are getting sweaty.

The air is changed, it crackles like lightning, and Eddie feels like, if he were to look upward, he’d see bubbles rising, the color of Richie’s eyes all around them.

He and Richie have a favorite popcorn bowl for movie nights.

He and Richie are two of the six polaroids featured on the Banned List at the local putt-putt course.

He and Richie have the same fan theories about Darth Maul.

He and Richie have preferred seats at the cinema, right in row D, seats ten and eleven. They’re the only seats in the entire theater that don’t have gum on them anywhere. Eddie knows, because Richie checked each and every seat, and he re-checks them every time they go.

Richie is his best friend.

Richie’s gonna leave him.

“Don’t be scared. I won’t forget you, Eddie.”

Stunned, Eddie hesitates, searching Richie’s stare for the sign of an oncoming joke, but there’s nothing but honesty there.

Tentatively, Richie’s hand comes up to press just his tobacco-stained fingertips to Eddie’s cheek, and when Eddie doesn’t shake him away, he presses his palm there.

“I won’t forget you.”

Drunk and high as he is, Eddie’s brain-to-mouth filter appears to have vanished, and he announces without meaning to, “you’re… you do something to me.”

Richie looks at him in this candid, imploring way, and Eddie knows it’s a question - they’ve known each other long enough that they speak even in silence. They can carry on entire conversations with just their eyes and brows, and sometimes Eddie can even tell what Richie is thinking by the set of his shoulders, or how visible the veins in his forearms are.

Idly, he wonders when that happened, and how in the world he is meant to go without it.

“My… blood is hot,” Eddie confesses, trying to sparse meaning from it as he says it, “But like, that happens. Just, I know it only happens when I’m with you.”

Eddie’s voice is rough, he can’t tell why it’s coming out like that, he feels like he might start to cry, and the expression on Richie’s face is so intense, Eddie feels another wave of heat swallow him, and he gasps out a sort of laugh, “ _hah_ \- I - I’m really warm right now. I’m high, Richie - sorry, sorry if this is weird -”

“You make my blood hot too.”

“... I do?”

Richie answers with his eyes again, and then the magnetic pressure is too much to bear, and they collide in a hypnotic kiss, gentle and unsure at first, but when they part for air, and fall back into each other, that kiss feels a lot like it’s meant to be a punch.

Eddie crawls on top of Richie, licking into his mouth, and sucking on his tongue - he has very little experience in making out at all, but it’s not about finesse or methodology now. 

He means to be screaming, and crying, and clawing at Richie, but it’s coming out like hard breaths, and sweaty palms, and perverted groping.

Making out is objectively pretty gross, and Eddie has never been inclined before, certainly not like this, but it’s like he’s starving, and Richie is everything delicious and ripe in the world. 

Hands roaming each other’s flanks, Eddie gives him a brutal kiss, he can’t help it, he didn’t know that Richie’s mouth would be so soft, and so hot, and then Richie makes a hitherto unknown “ _mmnnhh_ ,” sound out of his throat that, shockingly new to Eddie’s ears, makes him grind down, eliciting new noises from both of them.

He latches onto Richie’s neck, grinding down more, punching groans out of him on every downswing, and sucking hard on his jugular and clavicle, scraping at Richie’s collarbones with his teeth.

There’s not enough skin, Eddie needs more, he needs access to more, to taste it, and see it, it’s like the world is ending.

While Eddie’s hands shake, Richie’s hands graze reverently, and while Eddie all but tears at Richie’s clothes, Richie takes gentle care to slide his hands onto Eddie’s skin, before pushing at his clothes to reveal more.

They struggle with their clothes for a while, because the act of undressing interrupts their hungry kissing, which neither of them seem able to stop doing. Their lips are swollen, and their breaths are coming in short huffs by the time they've worked the last articles off.

Without using words, and only barely gauging each other’s facial expressions, Richie manages to direct Eddie into turning in the other direction, positioning his head between Eddie’s tensed up thighs.

Momentarily confused, Eddie keeps his weight up with his arms outstretched, his palms bolted to the floor, and he thinks he might mention that his knees hurt like this, but any sound that may have come out of him is replaced with a loud gasp.

Spindly, calloused fingers take hold of his hips and pull Eddie down to meet halfway a drooling, eager mouth.

_Oh,_ **_God_** , Eddie thinks, the first human words to flit through his head in what feels like ages, _oh, God, oh, fuck, that’s amazing_ -

Without meaning to, Eddie pumps his hips, driving his cock deeper down Richie’s throat, and when he means to go apologize, Richie’s hold on his hipbones gets more severe, and pulls him down again, encouraging him.

Distantly, Eddie thinks he ought to do the same for Richie, he’s in the right position for it, but his jaw is seizing, his neck is straining, his hips won’t leave off, he’s worried he’ll hurt Richie, lacking any degree of focus with how he is.

It's so good, he feels like he could die from it.

_“Wanna know some hot sex tips?” Richie asked loudly in the Action aisle of Blockbuster, in the company of Stan, Mike, and Ben._

_“Emphatically, no, Richie,” Eddie had grumbled, face already beet-red, and of course, Richie had ignored him._

_Richie swung an arm around him, and carried on conversationally, “so, let’s say things are really heating up between you, and your date, right? And you wanna give the best handjob a guy could ask for -”_

_“What the fuck? Why am I giving a handjob in this scenario? Wh -”_

_“You wanna know what you do, or not?”_

_Glaring, with his arms crossed over his chest, he gave into Richie, and asked, “... fine, what do I do?”_

_“There’s one surefire way to give the best hand job known to man, just one simple technique that’ll change the game -”_

_“Okay, what?”_

_“You put your mouth on it!” Richie joked, as though it were obvious._

_“You’re so gross!” Eddie had yelled, their friends laughing while Eddie made sharp hand gestures, “No one should let you talk! You should lose your legal right to speaking, Richie! You need a muzzle, or that fucked up surgery they do to dogs that renders them mute! You need a fuckin’ labatomy!”_

_“I need a labatomy like I need a fuckin’ hole in the head, am I right?” Richie had jeered, elbowing Ben in the ribs._

They had all laughed at the time, it had been funny then, but now Eddie is realizing he may never be able to get off again using just his hand. 

He’s so immediately addicted to the feeling of Richie’s mouth on him, he feels like pop rocks are fizzing up in his head. He wants to feel bad about it, about how his hips are moving so viciously, but he can’t, there’s slaver coating his cock, Richie’s mouth is hot as sin, his tongue keeps moving in this serpentine way that hugs the head of Eddie’s cock every time his hips pull up, Eddie can feel his sac hitting Richie’s glasses each time they come down, and an intense, mouth-watering pressure is building at the base of his spine.

“I-I - oh, oh fffuh - _anh_ \- _anh_ \- _anh_ \- _fuh_ \- **_ah_**!” is as much as Eddie can manage before his orgasm barrels through him, rocking him from his scalp to the spaces between his toes.

He feels Richie jump at first, but his throat is tight around Eddie, his hands are firm on Eddie’s hips, and he keeps swallowing, and licking, even when Eddie is sure there’s nothing left to swallow. 

_I just fucked Richie’s mouth_ , Eddie thinks deliriously to himself, beginning to finally feel some of the sweat that’s been building on him, _oh, holy fuck, holy fuck, what the fuck, I just fucked Richie’s mouth_ -

He wonders if he should apologize, he knows he came really quickly, but to be fair, it was the first time another human had interacted with his dick. More strangely, he doesn’t feel satiated. He doesn’t know what to make of that. 

Richie releases Eddie from his mouth, the flat of his tongue laving up Eddie’s length from head to root, then moving over Eddie’s sac. It gives Eddie a series of pleasant shivers. 

Sucking in air, trying to get back some higher brain functions, Eddie begins to lift himself, wanting to say something, make words happen somehow, but as he does, Richie uses his momentum, and the precarious balance of his body over Richie to tug him back down.

His cock is decidedly not in Richie’s mouth, though.

The air is forced out of Eddie's lungs in a gust, he’s shocked, and abashed, his face has never been so hot - his hands fly to Richie’s, still on his hips, and he tries to move up, and away, thinking there’s no way Richie means to be where he is, but Richie’s hands pet him soothingly.

_Relax_ , the motion of Richie’s thumbs tell him, _relax, it’s supposed to feel good._

There is no relaxation so soon, though; _that’s filthy_ , Eddie thinks as the silky, hot brand of Richie’s tongue massages his rim, _Richie, that’s disgusting_. 

Blood rushes back to his cock, and Eddie brings one hand up to hide his face, though he knows Richie can’t see him.

There are tears building in his eyes, sweat is misting over his body, Richie’s tongue is moving around and inside him, and he gasps wetly, dizzy, and more turned on than he’s ever been in his life.

There’s something about the naughtiness of it that’s turning him on - it’s forbidden, it’s taboo, it’s a dirty thing to do - not that Eddie isn’t a carefully clean person, he is neurotically cleanly, and he may know it’s relatively safe to do this to him, but Richie couldn’t have known that, and he did it anyway.

He did it hungrily, without pause or hesitation.

“ _Unh_ \- _hah_ \- oh, oh, God…”

Between the intentionally calming effect of Richie’s hands, and the sweet coaxing of his tongue, and lips, Eddie’s body finally begins to relax a little, and he finds that the pleasure lies there, right beyond the threshold of acceptance.

He internally agrees to this, he wants to see what it’s like, just for a moment, to let himself want it, and then the pleasure sets in, and it’s a luxuriating kind. All at once it feels passionate, but soothing, warm, and electric, sensual, and the worshipful feeling of Richie making out with arguably some of the most sensitive skin on Eddie’s body spreads slowly through Eddie, lighting up his senses.

He can’t help himself, he bows his back, and he presses down on Richie’s face, and Richie _moans_ against him, and Eddie watches Richie’s cock throb, and precum shine at the head.

_Holy fuck, he likes this_ , Eddie considers, shifting his pelvis just so, unmistakably riding Richie’s face, _Richie likes this. He likes eating me out - fuck, **I** like this, I like this, I love this, I love it, holy fuck, holy fuck _ -

Eddie’s hard again, fully hard again, and the tingling sensations working their way from bottom to top make him too weak to keep upright.

_I want_ **_more_**.

With a measure of self control Eddie never knew he had within himself, he swings his leg over, and off Richie, finds him red in the face, his eyes glazed, swollen lips shining, and pupils blown as wide as they go.

However much patience is left in Eddie, he uses as he shoves his hand under Richie’s arm, pulls him up off the floor, only to push him onto his bed.

He climbs up after Richie, caging him with his lithe arms.

He wants to make Richie feel good. He wants Richie to feel like a God.

Kindly as he can, he takes Richie’s glasses, and puts them on the nightstand where he spots the second drawer open; there’s something hot pink inside. He reaches for the drawer, pulling it open, and finds a battery-powered vibrator in a sizable, phallic shape, a bullet vibrator nearly concealed by a sweater, a bottle of lube next to a disinfectant spray, and an open box of tissues.

_Yes_ , Eddie thinks to himself, taking the lube and barely processing what else he’d seen.

Eddie deposits the bottle onto the bed near Richie’s thigh, then plunges down again to kiss his mouth. There’s no foul taste, or anything concerning, or gross; he tastes like Juicy Fruit gum, smoke, skin, and sex.

By the look on his face, Richie seems amazed by that kiss, and Eddie endeavors to do more than that.

He spends precious, long minutes sucking hickies into Richie’s neck, across his collarbone, over his chest, and then nibbles, and laves at his pebbling nipples. All the while, his hands pet and massage Richie’s body, and Richie makes these _incredible_ sounds.

They’re harsh, seething gasps, throaty cries, raspy vowel sounds, and every inch of Richie’s body is trembling, like he might vibrate out of his skin, his stomach muscles jump and visibly contract, his whole body reacts to every stimulus.

Eddie sucks on the (apparently) very sensitive skin at the incline of Richie’s hip, where his thigh and pubic bone meet, and Richie moans so loudly and suddenly, he surprises even himself, and smacks a hand over his own mouth.

It’s befitting, Eddie thinks, that of course Richie wants to be quiet the one time Eddie wants him to make noise more than anything.

Nervous to take all of Richie at once, Eddie tentatively licks, and kisses along the sides of Richie’s cock, and marvels at the novelty of being this close to him.

Richie is so vulnerable like this, and Eddie would never purposefully hurt Richie, they both know that, but there’s still something remarkable about realizing what power over him Richie is surrendering to him.

At the crux of his groin and thigh, Eddie noses at the dark curls there, and breathes in Richie’s musk. There’s a distinctly masculine scent, mixed in with the smell of Irish Spring soap. The novel fragrance alone goes straight to Eddie’s head, makes his eyes flutter shut, his mouth waters, and he shifts his weight more onto his elbows so he can take the first inches of Richie’s cock into his mouth.

Shaky hands immediately cling to Eddie’s hair, and he decides he likes the feeling of it, of he and Richie being a sort of closed loop.

There’s a sort of quivering in his bones telling Eddie that he needs more, he needs to climb inside Richie, and absorb Richie into him, and never have them parted again. He wants to wind their DNA together, make a home in Richie’s ribcage, and blend them as seamlessly as a gradient. 

Eddie manages to fumble for the lube, and without looking at what he’s doing, he just coats his middle finger in it. The lube is a little cold straight out of the bottle, so he moves carefully, drawing his finger up the inner side of Richie’s thigh until he can rub his finger against Richie’s perineum.

Richie fully convulses off the bed, moaning, and whining, and twitching in Eddie’s mouth the more Eddie rubs in circles over the skin.

Making sure that Richie has ample time to object, Eddie moves his finger between Richie’s cheeks, applying gentle pressure to his rim, and Richie tumbles right into a one-two-punch of an orgasm.

Eddie bravely swallows what he can, but pulls off for air, and watches Richie come, his fingers scrambling in Eddie’s hair, his head thrown back exposing his red, bitten neck, his back is arched off the bed, and his Adam's apple is bobbing as he struggles for breath. 

He’s beautiful to Eddie.

Eddie can feel the contractions of Richie’s rim around the tip of his finger, his own cock throbs against the duvet, and still starving for Richie, he pushes his finger the rest of the way into Richie, which elicits a shout.

It’s more like a cry, but it’s most assuredly not an objection.

He pumps his finger in and out of Richie, and sucks more bruises into Richie’s inner thighs as he does. 

The noises that come from Richie are a music that Eddie has never before heard. It’s a constant stream of labored breaths, nearly realized curses, the beginning of Eddie’s name, but it all comes from a sex-fatigued, scratchy throat, and an arched chest.

When Richie spreads his legs for Eddie, canting and fucking himself on two of Eddie’s fingers, Eddie decides to dedicate it to memory.

The milky moonlight in the room, and the play of shadows on Richie’s body make him look like marble, but he’s too rosy, and much too alive and reactive to be a statue. His cock is hard, and heavy, there are bite marks and fresh bruises from his neck down to his treasure trail, his nipples are still hard, and his entire body shines with a thin sheen of sweat, and the wetness left behind by Eddie’s tongue.

_Need more_ , comes the thought, _need more. Need it now. Need him. Gonna die without him, without this. Need. Need. Need him_.

Scissoring his two fingers as much as possible before withdrawing, Eddie gets up onto his knees, and uses a generous amount of lube on his hand. He coats himself with that hand, and he doesn’t ask Richie if he’s got any condoms, he doesn’t care - he knows he should, but he doesn’t, he can’t -

Richie nods at him.

Like he knows.

Maybe he does.

Kneeling between Richie’s trembling legs, Eddie lines himself up, and when the blunt head of his cock breaches Richie all rational thought (the little of it that was left) disappears.

While Eddie slides into him, Richie moans gorgeously, and Eddie can feel a rumbling in his chest and throat, though he has no idea if he’s making real noise or not - there's too much blood pounding in his head to tell. He’s watching in disbelief as the girth of his cock spreads Richie wider, and every heartbeat carries with it a heat wave that makes Eddie light-headed.

He’s pleasantly surprised that Richie doesn’t experience any pain - his body doesn’t lock up, though the inside of him is a vice, he doesn’t grimace, or frown, not even for a second. Eddie watches him very closely, and watches his awe turn into something more complete. Something transcendent, and difficult to describe.

Their bodies mold together in harmonious perfection, and all Eddie can think of is that he’s done this infinite times. That he’s been some part of Richie, and Richie some part of him, not just for their entire lives, but other lives too, ones he’s lived elsewhere, and ones yet to come.

He thinks of outer-space, that he and Richie were maybe brother star systems at the start of time, and that’s how they know how to speak in silence like they do. Because they talked as stars once.

Richie silently indicates that it’s okay for Eddie to move, and he does - they groan in unison, and then Eddie can’t stop his hips from moving. 

He doesn’t mean to build such a relentless pace, and pressure, but he can’t stop moving, it’s reflexive somehow, and the lewd, erotic noises that come from fucking into Richie double his pleasure, rendering him powerless against the urge to fuck Richie, and to fuck him hard, and fast.

He pushes at the back of Richie’s knees, spreads him even more widely, puts Richie on display, he wants to see it, he wants to see what it looks like for him to be fucking Richie, he’s high off it, and when he looks up again, Richie’s covering the top half of his face with both hands.

His curly, black hair is haloed around him on the pillow, he's crying out, he’s so loud, there’s sweat, and tears, and his red mouth is open on an eternal moan of revelry, he looks so shy, he looks sweet, and it’s endearing, it makes Eddie want to kiss him more.

He can feel and partially see the way Richie’s big, pale feet jolt, and twitch in the air, he can feel Richie’s thighs quivering under his palms, he can smell smoke in the room still, but more overpowering is the smell of sex, of Richie and him.

Eddie would bottle it if he could.

“ ** _Oh_**!” Richie cries, “There, _there_ \- _oh_ , _oh_ , **_oh_ ** -”

There’s a mounting, sizzling pressure tickling the back of Eddie’s thighs, and low in his groin, climbing up his spine with every thrust he makes into Richie. He’s close again, though he doesn’t want to be. He wants to do this to Richie forever. He’d like to jerk Richie off to help him along, but he doesn’t want to jostle their position too much, now that he’s found an angle that Richie is losing his mind to.

“Oh, oh, oh, fu - _oh, fuh_ \- _fuh_ \- oh, oh, _fuck_! **_Fuck_**! _Eddie_! _Eddie_!”

“ _Richie_ ,” he whispers back hoarsely.

Wiry arms bend backward to grip his pillows, Richie’s muscles are shivering around Eddie’s cock, and to Richie’s apparent embarrassment, he comes untouched, and _hard_ in long, thick ropes over his stomach and chest, tightening impossibly more around Eddie. His orgasm ripples through him for a long while, and Eddie feels like he’s _melting_ into Richie.

With how all of Richie shudders and tightens, Eddie can’t stop himself from coming, and he buries himself as deeply into Richie as he can when he does. The desire is primitive, animal, and that's what Eddie feels like, he feels like an animal. He feels insane. 

Catching their breaths takes a few minutes, which Eddie grants, but almost as soon as he disconnects from Richie, he turns Richie around, and pushes himself back in, sighing in relief as Richie resumes his pleasured moaning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those that couldn't read the explicit sexual content; what occurs in the sex scene is very animal, and desperate. What passes between Richie and Eddie is more like grieving and worshipping one another rather than something happy, and the event is almost entirely silent - they barely speak to each other. While lying with Richie, Eddie has the very specific thought that he has known Richie in multiple realities, and that he feels sure that in every reality he has ever known Richie, they've always been together, and they've always been meant for one another. Eddie feels worshipped by Richie, and he worships Richie in return, and there is a LOT not being said out loud, but there's undeniable consent traded between them, and it's a trusting, and sort of tragically loving experience while also being alarmingly primitive, and frenzied. That's all you missed! <3


	2. Easily More Safe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's reference to sexual content in this chapter, but no actual sex scenes, just a character remembering the sex they'd had.
> 
> TW: mild sexual content, internalized homophobia, self-hatred, format changing to illustrate scattered thoughts

Eddie wakes during the small hours, a little unsure of where, or even who he is. As his eyes focus, he finds he’s on the side of Richie’s bed that faces the wall with the window. There's a poster of Special Agent Dale Cooper pinned up on the wall there, by the bed, because Richie had always joked that he was dreamy.

Maybe he wasn’t joking, though.

Eddie shifts a little, and he feels his naked skin move against the sheets. He’s naked, in Richie’s bed, and he can’t remember falling asleep.

Blushing from his hairline down his neck, he realizes that he does, quite clearly, remember fucking Richie within an inch of his life, though.

He remembers their bodies glistening with sweat, their voices crackling like firewood, their nails scraping at each other, and swollen lips coming together again, and again while Eddie’s hips rocked like the tide against the shore.

He’s completely worn out, he can’t even begin to imagine how sore Richie must be - he remembers Richie’s legs being too tired to support his own upper body weight anymore while riding Eddie, how Eddie helped him and grabbed his hips and brought him down while canting his hips up - a nervous thunder of Eddie’s heart rattles him enough to get him out of the bed.

How many times had he fucked Richie? How long had they gone at it? What the fuck had come over him?

Panic was rising in his throat like something acrid, and he needed to get out.

As he stood up, and found his clothes discarded around the room haphazardly, he realized the ceiling fan was on.

As he zipped up his jeans, he stared up at it.

Richie doesn’t use the fan when he’s leaving his window open for the night, but he knows Eddie can’t sleep without a fan on.

It’s a tender, silent gesture, and Eddie can’t bear the knowledge of it. He has to leave.

His shirt is by the foot of the bed, by Richie’s side, and when he kneels down to get it, he glances up at Richie’s sleeping form.

His glasses are on his nightstand, and his face is smooshed into his pillow. His hair is a wild mess, his lashes are long, dark feathers resting against his smooth, light skin, and there’s a flattering shadow cutting across his high cheekbones.

He looks to be naked under the sheets too, but he’s dead asleep; he and Eddie had fucked senselessly for hours, he must be exhausted, and aching.

Nervously shifting his eyes to the digital clock by Richie’s glasses, he spots that it’s past three in the morning.

He throws on his shirt, and backs out of the bedroom as quietly as he can.

He spares one last look at Richie, how he’s curled up, content as a house cat, too deep in sleep to be disrupted by something like a creaky floor. He looks lovely.

Eddie gets out, pads down the stairs, and slips on his shoes at the front door. He locks the door behind him with the spare house key Mrs. Tozier gave him in the sixth grade, and he gets on his bike to ride home.

He’s sore all over his body, he feels like he could drink an entire gallon of water, he feels grimy and sticky, he needs a shower, and he’s teeming with fear.

The mounting, indistinct dread follows him all the way home, plaguing him with doubts; thoughts about who might have heard them, who might have seen something, how irresponsible it was to have left the window open, and how much more irresponsible it was for Eddie to have done all that he did regardless of the state of the window.

He physically cringes at the thought of greeting his mother in the morning - he feels like he’s wearing his perversion on his face - he remembers how he pressed into every touch Richie gave him, how easily he melted into Richie, what Richie’s tongue felt like inside him - he swears his ears begin to ring.

His mother can’t know. He needs to wash better than he’s ever washed in his life, and he needs to be normal. He needs to be presentable, and well-behaved, and fucking normal, he can’t freak her out with this. She can’t know.

When he makes it home, he basically falls off his bike, and then hobbles inside like a decrepit old man. His mother is snoring in her armchair in front of a static television. The sound of the universe fills the living room.

_ “I’d believe it.” _

Eddie shakes the memory off, and moves quietly upstairs, and into the shower. 

He scrubs for half an hour.

He’s covered in bruises the shape of Richie’s fingers, and mouth, his upper and inner thighs and crotch are still slippery from lube, and over-sensitive to his own touch. His legs shake, and staying upright takes a herculean effort.

Once he’s pruned his skin, and sure he’s given himself some sort of burn from scrubbing too hard, he turns the water off, gingerly steps out, takes his clothes into his room, and seriously considers throwing them away rather than putting them in his hamper. He doesn’t want to risk anyone seeing, or smelling his clothes, and finding some kind of evidence of the night on them.

He tells himself he’s being paranoid, and puts them in the hamper, but also hides his hamper in his closet.

He’ll do his own laundry tomorrow.

He gets into clean pajamas, drinks from a leftover water bottle on his bedside table, and then tucks himself under the covers. He glances at his clock, and it blinks back at him in radioactive green that it’s a quarter past four.

_ This can never happen again. _

_ Why not? You want it to happen again. _

_ No, that was bad, it was desperate and weird, and deeply fucked up. _

_ It’s the best you’ve ever felt in all your life. _

_ And it didn’t just feel good, it felt **right**. _

_ Richie makes you feel good. _

_ He’s **always** made you feel good. _

_ And you like making **Richie** feel good. _

_ But it’s not okay, it’s not normal, it can’t happen again, it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. _

_ Richie’s gay. _

_ I guess. _

_ Maybe, or maybe he’s just not straight. _

_ No, things make sense this way, he’s never been interested in girls. He's never seemed interested in anyone before, really. _

_ You’re gay. _

_ No. _

_ You had sex with Richie, you’re gay. _

_ No. No. I topped, so - so it’s - it’s different. It’s different, cause I fucked him, he didn’t fuck me. It’s different. _

_ Is it really that different, though?  _

_ You did think to yourself that you’d like to know what it feels like on the other side. _

_ Richie made it seem so great, it’s only natural you’d be curious. _

_ Richie would probably make it feel amazing. _

_ Bottoming and topping is different, though, it’s different, and I will not be bottoming for Richie. _

_ Maybe it’s not really that different, topping or bottoming. _

_ It’s still sex with another man. _

_ It’s still **enjoying** sex with another man. _

_ I AM NOT GAY, I AM NOT ALLOWED TO BE GAY. _

Eddie scrunches his eyes closed as tightly as he can, willing away the ugly stream of thoughts.

When Eddie fucked Richie from behind, he pulled on Richie’s hair, bending his head back, and Richie’s mouth had dropped open on a stuttered gasp. And when Eddie fucked Richie on his back the second time, Richie twined their fingers and held onto Eddie for dear life. And when Richie came for the fourth, or fifth time that night, he cried actual tears, and Eddie had kissed the corner of his open, sobbing mouth.

Eddie wasn’t in control of himself, but it’s the most control he’s ever felt in his life.

He thinks to himself that he’ll put it to rights the next day at school. Richie will understand, surely. He’ll understand that it was fucked up, and some sort of bizarre act of grief.

Eddie thinks to himself that Richie will understand, because Richie must have been feeling the same way - that he acted out of grief, and fear of the future.

After all, why else would Richie have done all that?


	3. We Were Pure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: internalized homophobia, mentions of food, physical illness mention

Having already spent too much time outside pacing nervously, Eddie heads his own death march into the halls of Derry High, and tries to stay small, and hidden. The strategy of willing himself to go unnoticed seems to be working until he gets to his locker, which is nearest to Stan’s, just a row down.

He’s wondering if Stan will claim a sick day or not, he couldn’t have gotten much more sleep than Richie or Eddie, after all, and Eddie’s barely standing.

His body aches all over, he’s dehydrated, and wrung out, and more intense than all of that is that he feels like an exposed nerve.

He feels vulnerable, and changed, and paranoid that anyone who so much as spares him a glance can tell just by looking, like he's got Richie's handprints plastered all over him.

“Eddie!”

Jumping like a street cat, Eddie spasms and accidentally slams his locker shut, twisting around to see Richie approaching with a thousand megawatt smile, and telling bruises on his neck.

His hair looks nice, though, and he’s dressed better than most days (meaning his shirts aren’t wrinkled, and he looks recognizably washed up). His skin is glowing, he’s flushed, and looks carefree. 

“Eddie, hey!” Richie greets gladly, a little out of breath from half-jogging down the hallway to him, “Uh - good morning.”

Richie’s acting strangely, but then, so is Eddie.

Deciding to ignore it, Eddie nods, and asks exhaustedly, “how the fuck are you not dead on your feet right now?”

Undeterred by Eddie’s dismissive attitude, Richie explains, “I’m probably gonna die in a few hours, don’t worry. I took those diet pills my mom keeps in her bathroom - the ones that are, like, definitely speed? And I stole a coffee from the teacher’s lounge. Well - I didn’t steal it, as much as I chugged it in like three gulps, and ran out. It was black as night! Mrs. Schafer has a _Cheers_ mug, isn’t that cute? Anyway, I got this for you before coming to school.”

Richie digs in his satchel, then produces a brown paper bag sealed with a sticker; after handing it to Eddie, wearing his eagerness on his radiant face enough that Eddie goes ahead and peeks inside, Eddie asks, “what is this?”

“It’s ginger root!” Richie exclaims, swinging one of his spindly arms over Eddie’s shoulders, jostling them both a little as he talks animatedly with his hands, “I took my bike to school, right? Which was a _task_ , lemme tell ya - so, I cut through main street, and, as luck would have it, the little monthly farmer’s market thing was opening up. So, I was gonna bring you flowers, ya know, cause I’m a real gentleman, but then I figured you’d get all nervous about your made-up allergies, so I ditched the daffodils and brought you ginger root from this holistic-living vendor lady, cause it has all sorts of, uh, you know, like - health benefits. So, not flowers, but flower-adjacent. It grows out of the ground. Right? Yeah - it’s a root, yeah, it’s gotta. Anyway, it’s meant to be more thoughtful than flowers, but I’ll get you flowers next time, if you want. Pretty neat-oh, huh? Look who’s boyfriend material now, right?”

The sound that comes out of Eddie is unmistakably Richie’s name, but it sounds more like “ _Richie_!” being played over the ominous warning of a rattlesnake. 

Eddie feels all the blood leave his face as he shoves Richie away from him, mortified, and whipping his head from side to side to see who may have overheard him.

“What? It’s fine! No one heard me,” Richie insists, looking out around them, then back at Eddie, “No one looks at us, man, they don’t care what we do, we’re Losers.”

Glancing either way down the hallway, Eddie grabs Richie’s forearm, and drags him into an empty classroom.

Once he’s sure there’s no teacher there, and the room will likely be unoccupied for at least first period, he hands the bag back to Richie, shaking it impatiently at him when he doesn’t take it right away.

Gently, Richie takes back the bag with both hands, but he holds it as if Eddie might reach for it again at any moment. He holds it like Eddie’s just going to tie his shoes, or search for an inhaler in his bag, and want it back again.

His smile has diminished.

“Look, Richie, I - I don’t feel good about what happened,” Eddie says to the floor, his ears going hot at just the remembrance of the night before, his hands shaking around the straps of his backpack, “I - we were both drunk, and high, and I shouldn’t have done that, I - I don’t know what came over me, and I think we should - we should just say sorry, and forget about it.”

“We should say sorry? Did I - are you hurt?”

“No,” Eddie answers, shaking his head, still unable to look Richie in the eye, or really look at him at all, too fearful of the answer to ask if he hurt Richie, “No, I’m not hurt, Richie, you didn’t do anything wrong, just… we’re not… like that, Richie.”

“But we could be,” Richie offers hopefully, stinging Eddie, “Last night was amazing, and you loved it, and I know you did, cause I know _you_. It was good, it was always gonna be good with you. No one else needs to know, Eds, it’s not for anyone else, anyway. I’ll be more careful.”

“It’s not like that,” Eddie insists, swallowing a hot lump in his throat, “we’re not like that - we can’t be like that, Richie.”

“Why not? Why the fuck can’t we?” Richie asks; Eddie can only see that the veins in his forearms are pronounced, “Even when we’re _not_ like ‘that,’ we’re _like that_ , Eddie. You and me? Come on! Come on, Eddie, we both know it! Stop acting like I made this up in my fuckin’ head! It’s not like anyone here fuckin’ cares, no one even notices you and me, why can’t we be -”

“Yeah, well, they’d notice _that_ , Richie, and I’m glad no one notices me, I wanna keep it that way, and you know damn well why, and we’re _not_ \- we’re _not_ , Richie. Even if it feels like it sometimes. _I’m_ not -”

“You can’t be serious right now.”

“I’m _not_ \- that - that _way_!!” Eddie shouts, chest feeling tight, finally looking up into Richie’s desperate eyes, “I’m not, and I’m sorry if you are - that you are - I’m sorry if it’s - but it’s not my fault you’re like that.”

That was the wrong thing to say.

The way Richie’s shoulders fall says a lot in the silence.

“It’s no one’s fault,” Richie starts, voice small, “I was born to be with you, dude. It’s like I’ve lived a million times, in a million different worlds, and I always find you, and I’m always yours. Didn’t you think that last night? Didn’t you feel that?”

It terrifies Eddie that Richie and he shared that identical sentiment somehow, because Eddie distinctly recalls having had that same thought the night before. 

His heart is somewhere lodged in his esophagus.

“I’m yours, Eddie, and I always have been.”

“I don’t want you!” Eddie yells, distraught, trembling, “Not - not like… I don’t… you’re not mine, Richie, I don’t - I don’t claim you, and I can’t, and I wouldn’t, and I’m… I’m sorry. I’m sorry that -”

“Right,” Richie interrupts, tossing the bag of ginger root onto a nearby desk, and reaching into his back pocket for a cigarette, “You seem real sorry.”

“I am, though,” Eddie insists more gently.

“I know,” Richie tells him, sticking a Malboro between his full lips, no longer willing to look Eddie in the eyes, “That makes it worse.”

He shoulders past Eddie, makes his way into the hall, and Eddie watches him go, watches him walk out the emergency side exit, and he watches as Stan, who looks like he crawled out of his own grave, makes a sharp u-turn to follow him.

Nothing about that felt good, _or_ right.

* * *

Later, when Stan finds Eddie in the library during their shared lunch period, Eddie is too shamed to look at him either, the same as he was with Richie earlier in the day. Despite the oddly cold attitude Eddie gives off, Stan makes his way over to Eddie's table, and sits down next to him.

The only sound for two minutes is that of the loud, ticking clock over the librarian's desk.

“Is it bad?” Eddie eventually asks.

“As bad as it gets,” Stan answers plainly, “Worse, actually.”

Covering his face with both hands, Eddie curls in on himself, and mumbles against his palms, “you look like shit.”

“Thanks so much.”

“Did you get in trouble when you got home?”

“You’d have thought it was the fuckin’ Nuremburg trials in my living room last night.”

“Sorry.”

“Not your fault. Anyway, I’m doing my time. My punishment was that I had to come to school today, even if I wind up projectile puking all over Mr. Donovan.”

“... do you hate me?”

There's a beat where Eddie can tell without looking that Stan's expression must be deeply pitying.

“No, Eddie, of course not,” Stan sighs, “I love you, and I love Richie too. Richie’s a romantic, Eddie, and you’re a strategist. You always have been. Richie’s gross, and obnoxious, but inside, he’s like a fuckin’ Hellenic protagonist, languishing and pining. He’s really good at wanting what he can’t have, and you’re really good at surrendering stuff you want. I wish things were different, but…”

It stays quiet for too long; Eddie picks his head up to see if Stan is even still there, and he is, seated next to him, his chin is trembling, and tears are falling down his pallid, sickly face.

“Stan?”

Stan shrugs, and says in way of explanation, “everything is shit. Richie’s fucking leaving.”

“It’ll be okay,” Eddie lies unconvincingly, “We’ll have each other, at least.”

“I laughed at his jokes all night,” Stan remarks, looking at Eddie, his nose pink, “I usually bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself, but I laughed all night, and he was so fucking happy that I finally gave him what he wanted.”

Always prepared, Eddie reaches into his backpack to retrieve a travel-size packet of tissues, and hands it to Stan.

Nodding his thanks, Stan pulls a tissue from the pack, wipes at his face, and then his nose, and then he laments nasally, “I feel like I’m gonna lose my mind without hearing his stupid voice every day, at full volume. He’s like my brother, I don't even remember life without him. I never told him that.”

“You should,” Eddie intercepts, “You should tell him.”

Sniffling, and calming down some, Stan sighs deeply, and asks, “what was he like for you? When you gave him what he wanted?”

_Radiant_ , Eddie thinks instantly, reimagining how Richie approached him that morning, buzzing, and shining, and so eager to be his Secret Boyfriend.

It only occurs to Eddie in that very moment that Richie had surmised they were boyfriends now, as a result of the night before. The conclusion came so naturally to him, he ran up to Eddie with all his guards down.

Eddie feels sick to his stomach.

“He… it was like I’d cracked him open last night, and he was really… honest, and bloody, kind of - figuratively, I mean. Just…" Eddie trails off for a moment, recalling Richie stretched out in the moonlight, crying out for him, coiling their fingers together, "...he was scared, and then he was insane, and then he was beautiful, and calm, and then he was… perfect. He was perfect.”

“That sounds right.”


	4. Reckless, Unfrightened

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions of foods, mentions of physical illness, ANGST

Richie spends the last week he’s living in Derry with his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, like he’s too scared to touch anyone or anything anymore, and he refuses eye-contact with Eddie, even when they’re speaking. He does that public speaking trick, where he looks at the space between Eddie’s eyebrows instead of his eyes, so anyone looking would think he was being perfectly polite, but all Eddie feels is a severed cord.

He tries to get Richie alone again, so they can talk, but Richie doesn’t let it happen, and on four separate occasions he even uses Stan as a physical buffer between them.

Eddie tries to catch him off-guard at his house late one evening, but he happens upon the Tozier family all working together to load boxes into a moving truck, and his heart splinters. He bikes away before anyone sees him.

He spends those restless nights staring up at his ceiling fan, unwilling to ponder long on why his heart feels so fractured.

He can lie to himself for only three days, and on the third night, he weeps openly in his room, too scared to go to Richie and beg him for a kiss, and too scared to tell Richie the truth - that he is whatever way Richie is, that of course he felt the same multiverse connection that Richie felt, because they’re bonded somehow.

They were stars once, of course Eddie felt it.

The nights seem so long without Richie there to touch, and the days are so torturous with how he shuffles his feet, and hunches his shoulders like he’s anxious, no longer willing to pat, or pinch, or playfully make contact with anyone.

When moving day arrives, it’s early in the morning, on what is predicted to be a beautiful Saturday.

Mr. Tozier smacks the back of his overstuffed station wagon, and hugs Mike, Stan, and Eddie in turns, ruffles their heads, and tells them to take care of each other. 

Mrs. Tozier made them little gift-bags of cookies, tied up with ribbon, and she gets misty-eyed saying goodbye to them; she tells Mike he’s ‘a good boy,’ and to ‘stay strong.’ She tells Stan that she’s ‘so proud,’ of him, and that he’s ‘always welcome in their home, no matter where that home may be.’

She arrives at Eddie, pets his hair, and says, “I made sure yours didn’t have an macadamia in them. Eddie, you could be another son to me. You’ve grown up into such a good young man, I’m gonna miss you like crazy.”

He swallows roughly, and tells her, “Mrs. Tozier, you’re a swell lady. And you’ve always reminded me of Loretta Swit.”

“Oh, I could steal you away for myself!” she exclaims, pulling him into a hug.

He’s taller than her now.

He doesn’t remember that happening.

When she pulls away, she pats his cheek, then turns and gets into the passenger seat of the running car.

Richie’s already hugging Mike, thanking him for making him listen to ‘actually good music,’ and Mike is teary-eyed, but laughing.

“Man, congratulations on getting outta here, don’t worry ‘bout me, I got this.”

Stan doesn’t even wait for Richie to get to him, he just hugs Richie painfully tightly, and mutters something indecipherable into his shirt collar, to which Richie replies, “I know, dude. Don’t worry. You’re the tits, Stan the Man.”

Wiping away some tears, Stan backs off, and tries to smile.

Richie looks at Eddie - he looks Eddie in the eyes, and Eddie’s heart skips a beat.

His hands get shoved into his jean pockets, like he doesn’t know what to do with them, and it infuriates Eddie, heat is already pooling behind his eyes, his face feels feverish, and he can’t believe he fucked up his friendship with Richie so fucking badly that Richie’s too scared to hug him anymore.

“If you’re ever traversing the West Coast, take out the phone book you sit on in your mom’s car, and ring me, right?”

Eddie is stunned into incredulous silence, stuck staring at Richie with a slack jaw.

And just like that, Richie is turning away, and Eddie hasn’t said anything, and Richie didn’t hug him, and he’s going to throw up his fucking heart.

“ _ Richie _ !” Eddie shrieks.

He’s already on the other side of the car, about to open the door, but he stops, and looks at Eddie.

He feels like he’s already a million miles away.

_ You can’t go, don’t go, please, you’re going to forget me now, you’ll  _ **_want_ ** _ to forget me now - _

Mike leans over to speak into the passenger side window, and asks politely, “hey, before y’all leave, can Eddie steal Richie away for a minute?”

Mrs. Tozier looks knowingly at Eddie in the side view mirror, then says to Mike, “yeah, hon. He needs to be here in the car, though, in ten minutes - tops.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Tozier,” Mike tells her with a winning smile.

He looks at Richie, cocks his head in Eddie’s direction, which is clearly an instruction to go to him, and to Eddie’s furthered astonishment, Richie obeys.

He looks tempted to ask ‘what,’ like he didn’t just brush off over a decade of friendship with a half-assed parting. 

Eddie marches to the side of the house, away from where Stan, Mike and the Tozier parents are distracted with conversation, where they’re not really visible to anyone, and Richie follows him.

When they come to a stop in the shade between the Tozier house and their neighbor’s house, Eddie sees Richie’s hands flex in his jean pockets.

“Wh -”

“You turned the fan on,” Eddie interjects, his entire body shaking, “You turned the fan on while I was sleeping, because you know it helps me sleep, even though you don’t like the fan being on with your window open. You turned the fan on, and you didn’t close the window - you didn’t close it, because it’s heavy, and you knew it would wake me up. You pulled the covers up on me, and you turned the fan on.”

Richie doesn’t say anything, and the words pour steadily out of Eddie in the residual silence.

“You gave me all your pink Starbursts every Halloween, and there was a shitty Thursday at school in the tenth grade where you warned me not to go into the third stall in the boy’s bathroom because someone had thrown up in there. You checked every fucking seat in the Aladdin for gross shit just so I’d feel safe, and you always let me borrow your notes from days I missed school.”

“You jumped into the quarry first, even before Bill, just to show me it’d be okay, and you fucking rode your bike into Huffman when I didn’t see him coming for my head, and I know you told your mom to strictly buy red apples even though you like green ones, and I know it was because I said I like the red crispy ones, and you got me ginger root instead of flowers ‘cause I’m fucking nuts, but you make me feel like that’s okay, and no one has loved me better in my entire life, Richie -”

Tears are falling in earnest now, he’s struggling to catch his breath, and he pats his pockets searching for an inhaler he knows he didn’t bring - then an inhaler is brought to his lips, held in Richie’s hand.

“I keep a back-up in my pocket,” he says hoarsely, “Just in case.”

Eddie’s hands cover Richie’s over the inhaler, and he lets Richie administer.

After a deep breath, Richie offers the inhaler in his open palm, and Eddie smacks it away, and throws himself against Richie, wrapping his arms around Richie’s neck.

“You’re my best friend, Richie, you’re my best friend, and I - I fucked it up, I know I fucked it up, but it’s because of how we are, I know how we are, you didn’t make it up in your head, and I felt the same thing too, I’ve always felt the same thing, I’m just a fucking coward, Richie, I’m sorry - I’m so fucking sorry, Richie, please -”

Strong, loving arms curl around Eddie’s waist, and back, and he sobs into Richie’s neck.

“You’re not a coward, Eds. You’re a brave little fucker, and too good for me anyway.”

“No, no,” Eddie insists, shaking his head against the crook of Richie’s neck, “No, you’re good, Richie, you’re good to me, you’ve always been good to me, and I’ve been shitty to you, and that’s so fucking unfair of me, I’m sorry. It’s easier when - when it’s not so obvious, how much you love me, and last week -”

“It’s okay, I’m sorry for last week -”

“Richie, shut the fuck up!” Eddie curses, picking his head up only to crush his lips against Richie’s.

The kiss turns soft, though, and Richie stumbles further into the shade, until his back is against the side of his old home.

“I love you,” Eddie confesses, his lips moving against Richie’s, “And I’ve never been real lucky, Richie, I ain’t no fuckin’ senator’s son, but I’m so lucky you love me, and I’m lucky to love you, even if I fucked it all up. I love you.”

Eddie’s chest restricts as tears that were welled up in Richie’s eyes finally pour down his face, and he says too quietly, “I change my stance on dementors. I’m getting the happiness taken outta me right now, and it feels evil as fuck.”

“You still love me?” Eddie asks.

Richie’s hands come up to Eddie’s face, and before kissing him again, Richie tells him, “I’m gonna love you, Eds, I’m gonna fucking love you my whole life, and the next one, and the next one, and you don’t worry about that.”

A car horn sounds, and Eddie grips the front of Richie’s shirt more tightly, weeping in a way that makes his stomach contract, and his vision blur, “Richie, please, please don’t go - we can be careful, it’ll be okay, it’ll be fine, you’re right, you’re smart, and we don’t have to be for anyone else, it can just be us -”

“I gotta go,” Richie tells him tragically.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Eddie chants, his hands searching all of Richie for a more secure hold, some way to keep him there forever, “Richie, how the fuck am I supposed to do this without you?”

The horn sounds again, and Richie kisses Eddie roughly, and turns back into the light of day, toward the lawn, and the curb, and the car, and the future.

“Richie!”

“Eds, I gotta go, and if I look at you a second longer, I’m gonna fuckin’ run away with you or something, okay? I have to go.”

Richie rounds the car, wiping his face with his forearm, jostling his glasses, and before he gets in, Eddie shouts out, “don’t forget me!”

“I won’t, Eddie,” he answers.

He dips down to get into the car, then pops back up over the roof of it, and adds thoughtfully, “but if I ever do…”

Eddie feels Stan and Mike huddle around him for support, his face is tear-streaked, and so is Richie’s.

“Remind me. Okay?”

All Eddie can do is nod, and then Richie gets in the car, and the Tozier’s leave for California.

When the station wagon turns the corner, out of sight, Eddie collapses on the grass, and Mike and Stan come with him, and hold him while he shakes apart.


	5. Years Take Their Toll

_"Remind me."_

_"Remind me."_

_"Remind me."_

_"Remind me. Okay?"_

When Eddie turns around and sees Richie for the first time in nearly thirty years, it comes back to him, all in a blurry rush, but intact, and well-preserved in some secret corner of his mind.

Before Pennywise, before all of Derry, before the leper, and the rest of his fucked up childhood come back to him, even a little, he remembers all of Richie.

The gong sounds, because Richie's loud and obnoxious, but he's a romantic too.

Richie looks him in the eye, and Eddie opens his mouth, to remind him.

**Author's Note:**

> For those that couldn't read the explicit sexual content; what occurs in the sex scene is very animal, and desperate. What passes between Richie and Eddie is more like grieving and worshipping one another rather than something happy, and the event is almost entirely silent - they barely speak to each other. While lying with Richie, Eddie has the very specific thought that he has known Richie in multiple realities, and that he feels sure that in every reality he has ever known Richie, they've always been together, and they've always been meant for one another. Eddie feels worshipped by Richie, and he worships Richie in return, and there is a LOT not being said out loud, but there's undeniable consent traded between them, and it's a trusting, and sort of tragically loving experience while also being alarmingly primitive, and frenzied. That's all you missed! <3


End file.
